Littlewood was fifty-two years old, five eleven in height, with classic good looks and a trim physique, kept that way by a good diet and three gym sessions a week. He was good at his job, very good in fact. His patients ranged from teenagers to over-sixties, singletons to married and live-in couples, and from everyday people to a few B-list celebrities. Every week tens of patients would pour their hearts and minds out to him.

His last patient of the day had left half an hour ago. Her name was Janet Stark, a 31-year-old actress who was having terrible problems with her live-in boyfriend. They’d been fighting a lot recently about the most mundane of things, and she was sure he was sleeping around behind her back. The problem was, she suspected he was sleeping around with another man.

Janet herself had slept around with plenty of women, and she still did. She wasn’t afraid to admit it, but in her view, female bisexualism was acceptable, male wasn’t.

She’d had six sessions with Littlewood so far. Two a week for the past three weeks, and the flirting had started almost immediately. After the first session, Janet had started dressing more provocatively – shorter skirts, low-cut blouses, mega-cleavage bras, sexy shoes, anything to grab his attention. Today she had turned up in a short summer dress, black, open-toed Christian Louboutin ankle boots, ‘I-desperately-want-you-now’ makeup, and no underwear. As she lay down on the couch, her dress hitched up over her thighs, and she positioned her legs in such a way that absolutely nothing was left to the imagination.

Littlewood loved women, and the sluttier and kinkier they were the better, but he knew better than to have affairs, or even flings, with patients. Things like that never stayed undercover. And in a city like Los Angeles, all that was needed was a flicker of a rumor for the crap to spread like wildfire. In LA, a good rumor had the power to destroy careers. Littlewood was smarter than that. He got his kicks elsewhere, and he paid good money for it.

Littlewood was divorced. He got married in his mid-twenties, but the whole thing lasted less than five years. The problems started pretty much straight after the ceremony. After four and a half years of arguments, discordances and great sexual frustration, their marriage fell into such deep depression that severe psychological damage was caused to both of them. Divorce was the only way out.

They’d had only one son, Harry, who was now studying Law in Las Vegas. After his marriage experience, and the lengthy and arduous divorce process, Littlewood promised himself he would never get married again. Since then, the thought of breaking that promise had not once crossed his mind.

A buzzer screeched on Littlewood’s desk. He paused his Dictaphone and pressed the intercom.

‘Go ahead, Sheryl.’

‘Just checking if there’s anything else you need from me today.’

Littlewood consulted his watch. It was way past office hours. He’d forgotten that Janet Stark liked her sessions to start as late as possible.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Sheryl, you should’ve gone home over an hour ago. I lost track of time.’

‘It’s OK, Nathan.’ Littlewood had insisted that Sheryl call him by his first name. ‘I don’t mind. Are you sure you don’t need me to stay behind? I can if you want me to.’

Sheryl had been Littlewood’s office manager/secretary for just over a year, and the sexual tension between them could probably light up a small town. But he reserved for her the same courtesy he gave his patients, despite the clear attraction that existed between them. Sheryl, on the other hand, would have dropped all professionalism and jumped into bed with Littlewood faster than anyone could say guacamole, given the opportunity.

‘No, I’m fine, Sheryl. I’m just catching up on some notes. I’ll be leaving soon. Half an hour max. Go home, and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Littlewood returned to his recording and his notes. It took him another thirty-five minutes before he had everything organized the way he wanted. By the time he got to his office building’s underground garage, there were only three cars left. His was parked in the far corner, under a faulty light.

Despite his psychology practice doing well enough, Littlewood drove a silver, 1998 Chrysler Concorde LXi. He called it a classic, but his friends teased him that just because it was old, it didn’t make it a classic.

He used the key to unlock the door and got into the driver’s seat. He was desperately hungry, and he could certainly do with a stiff drink. The day’s effort in dodging sexual innuendos also left him wanting something else, and he knew just where to go to get it.

He turned the key in the ignition. His engine stuttered and coughed like a dying dog but it didn’t come to life. Sometimes his old Chrysler could be temperamental.

‘C’mon baby.’ He patted the dashboard.

Littlewood pumped the gas pedal three times and tried again.

More coughing and rattling – no success.

Maybe it was time to upgrade to a newer model.

One more time.

‘C’mon, c’mon.’

Nothing.

‘Give me a goddamn break.’

More pedal pumping.

Chu, chu, chu, chu, chu.

Littlewood slammed his clenched fists against the steering wheel and cursed under his breath before closing his eyes and leaning back on his seat. By the looks of it, it would have to be a taxi tonight.

That was when he felt something like he’d never felt before. A sixth-sense warning that came from deep inside him, almost freezing his blood in his veins and making every hair on his body stand on end.

Instinctively his eyes shot up, searching for the rearview mirror.

Looking back at him, from the darkness of his backseat, was the most evil-looking pair of eyes he’d ever seen.

Seventy-Two

Hunter sat alone in total darkness facing the pictures board in his office. It was late and everyone had gone home. In his hand he held a flashlight, which he kept flicking on and off at uneven intervals, in an attempt to trick his brain.

As light enters the eye and hits the retina, the eye’s photographic plate, the image that is formed is inverted, but is interpreted the right way up by the brain. If you allow that image to be projected onto the retina for just a split second before cutting off the light source, the brain then has to interpret only what it can remember, drawing from what modern medicine calls the ‘immediate’ or ‘f ash’ memory.

If the image is a shape well known to the brain, like a chair, the minor details the brain failed to register due to the short light exposure, are automatically compensated by the long-term memory – the brain thinks ‘it looked like a chair’, so the brain pulls a chair image from its memory bank. But if the shape is unknown to the brain, then it has nothing to fall back on. It then compensates by working harder in trying to identify details from the original image. That was what Hunter was trying to do, force his brain to see something it hadn’t seen before.

So far, it hadn’t worked.

‘Is this your idea of disco lights?’

Hunter turned in the direction of the voice and switched on his flashlight. Alice was standing by the door, holding her briefcase.

‘I didn’t know you were still here,’ he said.

‘What, you think you’re the only workaholic in this place?’ She smiled.

Hunter shifted in his seat.

‘Do you mind if I switch on the lights?’

‘Go ahead.’ He flicked off his flashlight.

Alice hit the light switch before nodding at the board. ‘Got anything new?’ She knew what he was trying to do.

Hunter rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger while shaking his head. ‘Nothing.’